your vanity press is bad and you should feel bad

The hell with it, let's go through the Demented Dragon catalog one-by-one. Demented Dragon is sponsoring Chris Hazelton's appearance at New York Anime Festival, by the way. Draw your own conclusions. Anyway, first up:

Throughout history, mirrors have been reffered to a source of mystery and magic.

So begins the steaming pile of hackery that is Midnight Blue, which promises something about magic mirrors. Instead it gives you a hero, Jay, who appears in sample pages 17-33 but spends pages 18-30 dispensing the following dialogue (presented in its entirety, original spellings and punctuation preserved):

Dammit I really suck... ...it's just not fair. Shit!
Piss off!
Oh shit... Willow
God I suck! Shit!! It's just not fair!
Fuck off you damn fairy!
Kei? What are you so happy about fat ass?! Hey J.R. - you idot cat...
What the hell? Kei you friggin bitch!

Trust me, the other pages are no improvement. It's kind of hard to tell which has more realistic dialogue: Midnight Blue, starring a borderline misogynist who makes Irredeemable Ant-Man look like the bastard child of Gandhi and Jesus Christ, or Richard McBeef. In all honesty, my money? It's probably on Richard McBeef. And that is just fucked up.

Artist Yishan Li is not terrible, though someone should really help her figure out if Jay has facial hair or not. As for who's responsible for okaying the oh-so-accurate depiction of "Western New York" circa 2006 A.D. (no shit, really?), God only knows. But downtown "Western New York"? Yes, we do have art auctions on the steps of City Hall. All the fucking time. And the neighborhood totally looks like this. In 2006 A.D., by the way. Just in case you missed the caption 4 pages ago.

Don't you love it when people can't be bothered to put any effort into their work?

Midnight Blue author Amanda Tomasch also happens to be the Publication Editor for Demented Dragon. She has quite the storied history on the anime convention scene; search out the Animecons mailing list if you like, but frankly, what matters is not so much her past. What matters is that she lacks talent and Demented Dragon sells crap, and maybe, just maybe, that might be the real reason not to prop her up on a guest chair to dispense advice to the gladdening crowds. But as I said before, the anime con circuit does not deal well with the concept of quality control, which is why Tomasch and Hazelton will make guest appearances at IkkiCon, AniZona, and ooh! Look at that shiny button on the JaniCon webpage.

In any case, it's no secret that the vanity press is not a new concept. Does that excuse grossly unqualified individuals from printing up half-assed shit? Not really. You'd like to think Ms. Tomasch, or perhaps the other so-called Editor swanning around this outfit and apparently trying to prove that a Masters in English really is completely useless, could figure out that the English language does not include the words "majestey", "patheic", "repsibility", just as it lacks a place for "reffered", "peice", and "idot". You'd like to think. But you'd be wrong. And Demented Dragon expects you to hand them money for it. Integrity? Basic respect for art and the written word? Pride in putting out competent work? Who cares, we're official manga artists and publishers now, son! We're convention guests!

Oh, and this is just funny in a pathetic sort of way. So's this. And this one too.